Indonesian is the national language of the Republic of Indonesia. When
independence was declared in 1945, bahasa Indonesia ("Indo-nesian
language") was decreed as the country's official language. Although it is the
mother tongue of only about 20 million people out of a population of 200
million, it is estimated that as much as three-fourths of the population now
understand it.
Indonesian is virtually the same language as Malay, the latter spoken in
Malaysia. The principal difference was in the spelling up until 1972 when the
spelling was made the same. The Indonesian system having been developed by the
Dutch, the Malay by the British. Thus the Indonesian j is y in
Malay (e.g., kaju—wood, Malay: kayu); Indonesian dj is
j in Malay (gadjah—elephant, Malay: gajali); Indonesian
tj is ch in Malay (kutjing—cat, Malay: kuching); and
Indonesian sj is sh in Malay (sjarat—condition, Malay: sharat).
The Indonesian plural, like the Malay, is formed by merely repeating the word,
as in angan-angan in the poem below, which means "fantasies."